David Morales’ ‘Changes’ Listening Party: “I’m like Prince… a Trendsetter not a Trend Follower”

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By: Sarah Polonsky/ June 15, 2012

Since electronic dance music (EDM) has been hitting us everyday like a sonic sucker punch to the head lately, VIBE saw it befitting to check out old schooler and house music pioneer, David Morales, as he celebrated the release of his long-anticipated (eight years in the waiting to be exact) album, Changes.

“I’m excited because it’s a good day! I’m still here and I’m having fun,” the Grammy Award-winning producer told VIBE, Thursday, June 14th during his album release party at club Cielo in NYC. The 50-year-old, Morales worked the room with ease, like some sort of Frank Sinatra/Diddy house music hybrid, with a goatee.

The Meatpacking District’s long-running nightspot hosted the “invite-only” listening party, which soon morphed into a haven for house faithfuls, featuring live sets from electronic heavy hitters Frankie Knuckles, Hector Romero, Quentin Harris, with support from Morales’ own Def Mix and EDM powerhouse label, Ultra Records. Also in association with party-makers Dance.Here.Now, the scene for guest of honour, David Morales was, to say the least, happy and bouncy, with no Chris Brown/Drake punch-outs.

“It’s great that there’s a [EDM] boom in America,” Morales told us during a sit-down interview in the club’s special outdoors section (for the city’s remaining steadfast smokers). “If we go back in time, America was once on the frontline. When it came to clubbing and being first on the block, we lost it a bit. To think, I’ve made all my money and toured everywhere in the world but America…even when I was doing remixes in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was really Europe that put me on the map first. It wasn’t even my own people.”

David Morales says this out of mere disappointment, but he’s not looking for a pity party. The man that has worked with music legends such as, Mariah Carey, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, the late Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson, to name a few, transforming their pop tracks into club-friendly bangers. He’s been around the block and knows more than a few tricks of the trade.